Jeg må legge til at det er en provoserende mann med i denne artikkelen
For all his vehemence in print, Derbyshire is affable in conversation, explaining that his laboratory research on the neurological basis of pain in adults led him to the matter of what fetuses feel: “For me, it’s an interesting test case of what we know about pain. It’s a great application of theory, basically.” The theory, in this case, is that the experience of pain has to be learned — and the fetus, lacking language or interactions with caregivers, has no chance of learning it. In place of distinct emotions, it experiences a blur of sensations, a condition Derbyshire has likened to looking at “a vast TV screen with all of the world’s information upon it from a distance of one inch; a great buzzing mass of meaningless information,” he writes. “Before a symbolic system such as language, an individual will not know that something in front of them is large or small, hot or cold, red or green” — or, Derbyshire argues, painful or pleasant.

He finds “outrageous” the suggestion that the fetus feels anything like the pain that an older child or an adult experiences. “A fetus is biologically human, of course,” he says. “It isn’t a cow. But it’s not yet psychologically human.” That is a status not bestowed at conception but earned with each connection made and word spoken. Following this logic to its conclusion, Derbyshire has declared that babies cannot feel pain until they are 1 year old.
I denne lenken er det en del vanlige folk som svarer på hva de mener om forskningen hans http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/ap...ellbeing/print (her har han moderert seg til 4 måneders alder av en eller annen grunn) http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question...7111947AA57PdD

If my children got bumbed, they cried. If they got pinched, they cried. When comforted, they stopped crying. If I stumbled, they felt fear of falling and cried out in fear. These researchers are idiots and should be banned from any further research that requires use of the scientific method!
They may not know the word "pain" or how to define or describe it, but they sure do feel it- otherwise why would they cry when feeling pain- even just discomfort like hunger or being wet? We can only hop the professor isn't reborn, because many people might want to poke him, as a new infant, with a pin!